THE FURROWS OF FREEDOM 

BY 

CHARLES LATHROP PACK v 

President of the National War Garden Commission 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Victory Gardeners Enforcing 
Their Demands 


Copyrigh't, 1919, by 


National War Garden Commission 






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AHR 15 1913 

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IN THE FURROWS OF FREEDOM 

By Charles Lathrop Pack, President 
NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION 

Reprinted from American Forestry Magazine, March, 1919. 


A NATION is as strong as 
its homes. The purpose 
of the various community 
efforts, which today are occupy¬ 
ing the thought of many leaders 
in civic betterment work, is to 
knit together and make more 
secure the home ties. 

• The greatest of all community 
efforts is that of home food 
production. The garden is the 
cement which helps to hold 
in place the foundation of the 
home. There is scarcely a city 
or a town in the United States 
where the question of bringing 
the producer and the consumer 
closer together has not been dis¬ 
cussed and where some sort of 
plan has not been devised for 
bringing this about. But the 
method which has accomplished 
the most and which has proved 
most successful is that of the 
home and community garden. No 
other instruments have been 
found so helpful to the individual, 
the unit of community life. 

‘‘We Americans ought to be a 
nation of gardeners,” says W. E. 
Babb, a Chicago newspaper man 
and apartment - house ‘ ‘ cliff- 
dweller,” who cultivated a gar¬ 
den last year for the first time in 
his life, and found it not only 


profitable from an economic point 
of view, but interesting and edu¬ 
cational as well. “ Nature in¬ 
tended that we should be a nation 
A cuff- of gardeners,” he 

DWELLER’S adds, “ and this 

experience applies to the man 

in the city as well as to the rural 
districts. 

He tells how, after clearing all 
the “ weeds, tin cans and brick¬ 
bats from the vacant lot which I 
‘ borrowed,’ and digging up a 
carload of junk,” he succeeded in 
raising “ enough to supply a 
score of people with vegetables 
all summer, while in addition my 
wife canned a lot for winter 

use.” Thus did he show 
himself both producer and con¬ 
servationist. 

“And there was something 
more,” he declares. “I learned 
that vegetables are interesting 
things to live with. I tried rais¬ 
ing chickens once and got a lot of 
real pleasure out of it, but it 
didn’t compare with the joy and 
knowledge I got out of my war 
garden.” He was awarded first 
prize by the State Council of De¬ 
fense for his war garden. 

Many thousands of other peo¬ 
ple have learned that war gar¬ 
dening is not only valuable but 



interesting. City officials and 
business men have learned that it 
is a movement worth cultivating 
permanently. That is why, in 
MAKING addition to their knowl- 
it per- edge of the present 
manent world need for food, 
they are backing the Victory 
Garden campaign this year. The 
community with the largest num¬ 
ber of gardens in proportion to 
its population, other things being 
equal, is the most prosperous and 
the best community. One has 
only to look at value figures of 
what some of the cities raised last 
year, running into many thou¬ 
sands and in numerous cases into 
the hundreds of thousands of 
dollars, to realize what this 
movement means. 

Closely connected with this 
home food production effort is 
the big “own-a-home” campaign 
which is being conducted this year 
throughout the nation. This is 
being stimulated by the United 
States Department of Labor, the 
National Federation of Construc¬ 
tion Industries, real estate boards 
and chambers of commerce and 
various other organizations 
which have at heart the lasting 
betterment of the people. The 
Council of National Defense is 
now utilizing the vast machinery 
which it built up to help organize 
the nation for the pressing busi¬ 
ness of war, and turning it into 
the channels of peace and work¬ 
ing out community welfare 
schemes. This includes the plant¬ 
ing of gardens. All these forces 


realize the binding strength of 
the home. Love of home reflects 
love of country and inspires the 
spirit that produces real patriot¬ 
ism. Lincoln said: “ Let not him 
who is homeless pull down the 
house of another, but let him 
labor diligently to build one for 
himself. ’ * 

America, the land of homes; 
America, the land of gardens! 
That is a 4 4 consummation de¬ 
voutly to be wished/ ’ a goal 
worth striving for. The nearer 
we come to that aim, the richer 
in things spiritual as well as 
physical will be the nation. 

Large industrial concerns 
which have encouraged and as¬ 
sisted their employes to plant 
gardens and to raise part of their 
value of own f°od testify .to 
shop the value of the work 

gardens as a stabilizer of 
labor and as making more con¬ 
tented and better workmen and 
citizens. The National War Gar¬ 
den Commission has received 
numerous reports which bear out 
this statement. Here, for in¬ 
stance, is what is said by the 
Norton Company, of Worcester, 
Massachusetts, whose employes 
last year cultivated 100 acres of 
company land, on which they 
raised between $40,000 and $50,- 
000 worth of food, in addition to 
that which more than 2,000 work 
ers grew in their home gardens: 

“The Norton Community Shop 
gardening activities are no 
longer an experiment. On the 
contrary, they are an unqualified 


success, and the Norton Agricul¬ 
tural Society is looked upon by 
the company and its employes as 
a permanent institution. Many 
who have never handled the spad¬ 
ing fork and the hoe are becom¬ 
ing enthusiastic amateur garden¬ 
ers. Far from turning a good 
workman into a poor farmer, one 
of the most important results of 
the Norton garden activities has 
been the making of good work¬ 
men into better workmen. The 
procession of men who at the end 
of a summer afternoon in the 
shop tramp over the hill to enjoy 
an hour of vigorous exercise out 
of doors is matched the following 
morning by the returning ranks 
of clear-eyed, vigorous men, 
ready to engage with equal en¬ 
thusiasm in the regular voca¬ 
tional work which they have 
chosen. The harvest time, which 
brings to the man the tangible 
evidence of what intelligent ef¬ 
fort, persistence and industry 
will produce in the garden, gives 
him a clear realization that the 
exercise of the same qualities in 
the shop is as certain to bring its 
reward. Better still, as the offi¬ 
cers of the company and its men 
busy themselves in their gardens 
side by side, there arises the 
spirit of comradeship among all 
who embark together on some 
great adventure/’ 

This idea is spreading around 
the world and other nations are 
coming to the United States to 
learn of the benefits which have 


come to this country as a result of 
the community and shop garden 
movement. The inhabitants of 
the Philippines have entered into 
spreading this work with an 
over enthusiastic deter- 

the world m i na ti 0 n to improve 
their own condition at the same 
time that they are performing a 
broad humanitarian service. 

A report to the National War 
Garden Commission from the 
Secretary of Agriculture of the 
Philippines tells something of 
the way in which they are plant¬ 
ing gardens there. This work 
has been well organized and is 
being stimulated through district 
and municipal campaigns, so that 
everybody is reached and encour¬ 
aged to help in the food-produc¬ 
tion effort. Demonstration gar¬ 
dens are being planted through¬ 
out the islands in the public 
squares and plazas of the differ¬ 
ent municipalities to serve as a 
standing call to the Filipino peo¬ 
ples to help in the world food war. 
The instance is cited of a fourth- 
grade school boy in one of the 
islands in the Philippines who 
has taught a big lesson in food 
production to the natives of the 
whole island. He entered the 
contest which was held there and 
was given a small piece of land to 
cultivate. On it he raised a va¬ 
riety of vegetables. He was told, 
however, that it would not be pos¬ 
sible for him to grow a second 
crop of corn, as it never had been 
done and that the weather and 
other conditions would not per- 


mit. But he did grow a second 
crop of corn, and it was larger 
than his first crop. In this way 
he converted the sceptics to the 
possibility and the value of 
rotation in garden crops. 

The Japanese government is 
studying the methods which have 
been carried out successfully in 
this country by the National War 
Garden Commission. S. S. Honda, 
trade commissioner of Japan and 
an official in the Department of 
Agriculture, who was recently in 
the United States, took hack with 
him to Japan all the informa¬ 
tion he could gather about home 
and community food production, 
with the purpose of organizing a 
similar campaign in his conutry. 
In discussing the subject he said 
that a survey of idle land was 
then being made and that his peo¬ 
ple, who knew virtually nothing 
about home gardening, would be 
urged to cultivate all the land 
available. Japan, of course, 
prides itself upon its gardens, he 
said; but it is because of the beau¬ 
tiful flowers and landscape effects 
for which they are famous, not 
because of the vegetables which 
these gardens produce. 

The Victory Garden campaign 
in the United States this year is 
in full swing, and in the wide¬ 
spread interest shown and the 

number of gardens 

planted bids fair to 

ACTIVITY 1 

surpass the wonderful 
work done in 1918. Hundreds of 
organizations which were active 
in the movement last year are 


again in the field, while new ones 
are taking up the slogan of 
“ Food F. 0. B. the Kitchen 
Door ” and urging everybody to 
get into the furrows of freedom 
to drive back the new enemy, 
General Hunger. Manufacturing 
concerns have prepared to assist 
their employes again this year by 
providing land for them to culti¬ 
vate. There is increased inter¬ 
est among railroad employes in 
the work. State and city officials 
and garden committees are busy. 
Banks and libraries will assist 
again by the distribution to their 
patrons of thousands of garden 
books furnished them by the 
Commission. The newspapers of 
the country again are backing the 
movement and lending it their 
hearty support. Big campaigns 
are on in many cities, and mo¬ 
tion pictures are being used to 
show what the “ city farmers ” 
can do. As an illustration of 
what they are doing in some of 
the cities, here is what C. E. 
Smith, garden director of the De¬ 
troit department of parks and 
boulevards, says in a letter to the 
Commission: 

4 4 The work for the present 
year is well on its way and we 
are anticipating a much bigger 
and better work than the year 
previous. With a large number 
of gardeners already enrolled 
with us and the present amount 
of available land for garden pur¬ 
poses more than double that of 
last year, we feel assured that the 
victory gardening for this year 


will be well worth the most 
strenuous efforts.” In Detroit 
they are using the Commission’s 
posters on the street cars, partic¬ 
ularly to call the attention of the 
factory workers to the need of 
home food production. 

Advertising clubs are assisting 
and here is the text of a resolu¬ 
tion adopted at a recent meeting 
of the Advertising Club of 
Washington: 

KNOWING THAT the production * of 
food is the paramount problem before the 
world today, and 

KNOWING THAT the President of the 
United States has called upon us to help 
feed the people in the stricken areas of 
Europe, and 

KNOWING THAT everything possible 
must be done to produce food as close to 
the place of consumption as* possible, 
therefore 

BE IT RESOLVED by the Advertising- 
Club of Washington that its members co¬ 
operate with the National War Garden 
Commission in its campaign for Victory 
Gardens by using window displays and 
garden copy wherever possible in order 
to carry the message of Food F.O.B. the 
Kitchen Door to the people, and 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we 
urge the Associated Advertising Clubs of 
the world to cooperate, and that this 
resolution be sent to them. 

The opening of the home gar¬ 
den drive this year and every 


succeeding year should be cele¬ 
brated by a national holiday. It 
national is a new indepen- 
holiday FOR dence day for the 
gardeners nation; and the 
home soldiers of the soil should 
have some way of expressing the 
freedom which they have found in 
the garden. Of course, there is no 
fixed first planting day through¬ 
out the United States or even 
throughout a restricted territory; 
but some day might be fixed 
which would answer the purpose 
of calling attention in a nation¬ 
wide way to this great institution 
—the home and community gar¬ 
den. Pageants and parades can 
be arranged in the various cities. 

On the last Sunday in March 
the daylight-saving law goes into 
effect again, just in time to give 
the victory gardener the advan¬ 
tage of the extra hour of daylight 
every afternoon, which meant so 
much to him last year and which 
meant the addition of millions of 
dollars to the nation’s garden 
products. 

Are you going to have a part 
in the harvest of victory? Will 
you help to conquer the new en¬ 
emy, Hunger, which is killing 
thousands of people in lands 
across the seas? If you have not 
yet planted a Victory Garden, 
plan to do it today. 


MAY 22 1? 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



After J. N. Darling, in New York Tribune. 


NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION 

A Patriotic Organization Affiliated with the Conservation 
Department of the American Forestry Association 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 


Charles Lathrop Pack, President. 

Percival S. Ridsdale, Secretary. Norman C. McLoud, Associate Secretary. 


Luther Burbank, Cal. 

Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Mass. 
Dr. Irving Fisher, Conn. 

Fred H. Goff, Ohio. 

John Hays Hammond, Mass. 
Fairfax Harrison, Va. 

Hon. Myron T. Herrick, Ohio. 


Dr. John Grier Hibben, N. J. 
Emerson McMillin, N. Y. 

Charles Lathrop Pack, N. J. 

A. W. Shaw, Ill. 

Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, Ill. 
Capt. J. B. White, Mo. 

Hon. James Wilson, Iowa. 


P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of Education 







































